The present invention relates to the delivery of image products, more particularly, to a method and system for an image provider to ship a variety of image products to many different customers in an accurate and efficient manner.
With the advent of digital photofinishing, a wide variety of opportunities have opened for the customer in ordering various photofinishing products. Today, consumers may up-load digital images to a photofinishing image provider such as the Ofoto website (ofoto.com) where the customer is allowed to select individual images for printing in a variety of formats and/or associating a wide variety of different products with selected images. Thus, any particular order may comprise of a single print, multiple prints, or various other image products that are placed in a single package to be returned to the customer. With the great variety in composition of any order, there is an increased possibility that the image provider may ship an incomplete or wrong order to the customer. It is quite upsetting to a customer to receive an order that is incomplete or the wrong order. This typically involves the customer in having to inform the image provider of the error and waiting until the order is corrected. This is often quite upsetting to the customer. It is expensive for the service provider to manually check each order prior to sending the order out as it would add an excessive amount of cost to the goods.
Thus, there is a need to provide a cost effective method and system for minimizing the possibility of sending an incomplete or incorrect order to a customer.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for verifying the validity of a photofinishing order by a service provider, comprising the steps of:
service provider receiving a photofinishing order from a customer for at least one photofinishing product;
associating an order ID with respect to the photofinishing order
producing the at least one photofinishing product for the photofinishing order;
assembling the photofinishing order and placing the order within a package, the package having the ID thereon in machine readable format;
weighing the package containing the photofinishing order so as to obtain an actual weight of the photofinishing order and comparing the actual weight with an estimated weight of the package containing the photofinishing order, the estimated weight being obtained by machine reading the order ID and accessing information using the order ID; and
shipping the order to the customer if the difference between the actual weight and the estimated weight is within tolerance.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention there is provided a system for verifying the validity of a photofinishing order by a service provider, comprising the steps of:
a computer system for receiving a photofinishing order from a customer for at least one photofinishing product, the computer system associating an order ID with respect to the photofinishing order;
an output device for producing the at least one photofinishing product in accordance with the photofinishing order;
an assembly station for assembling the photofinishing order and placing the order within a package, the package having the ID thereon in machine readable format;
a weigh station for weighing the package containing the photofinishing order so as to obtain an actual weight of the photofinishing order and comparing the actual weight with an estimated weight of the package containing the at least one photofinishing product using information obtained using the order ID; and
shipping the order to the customer if the difference between the actual weight and the estimated weight is within tolerance.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for verifying the validity of a customer order, comprising the steps of:
receiving a photofinishing order comprising at least one photofinishing product;
calculating a total estimate weight of the photofinishing order based on the average known for each of the at least one photofinishing order and a package for containing the photofinishing order;
providing the at least one photofinishing product for the photofinishing order and placing it within the package;
weighing the package containing the photofinishing order so as to obtain an actual weight of the photofinishing order and comparing the actual weight with the total estimated weight;
shipping the order if the difference between the actual weight and the estimated weight is within tolerance.
In still another aspect of the present invention there is provided a system for verifying the validity of a customer order, comprising the steps of:
receiving a photofinishing order comprising at least one photofinishing product;
calculating a total estimate weight of the photofinishing order based on an average known weight for each of the at least one photofinishing product and a package for containing the photofinishing order;
providing the at least one photofinishing product for the photofinishing order and placing it within the package;
weighing the package containing the photofinishing order so as to obtain an actual weight of the photofinishing order and comparing the actual weight with the total estimated weight;
shipping the order if the difference between the actual weight and the estimated weight is within tolerance.
These and other aspects, objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood and appreciated from a review of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and appended claims and by reference to the accompanying drawings.